TeachMeet BETT 2009

TeachMeet BETT 2009

#TMBett09

Friday 15th January 2009 there will be a TeachMeet. Signed up to attend are 130+ teachers, consultants, advisors, educators, decision-makers.

Sign up here: http://teachmeet.pbwiki.com/TeachMeet09Bett

I have never been before. I’ve attended two MirandaMods which work on the same unconference style.

At TM teachers will present their classroom practice and other interested parties will proffer their thought and ideas. Most will show the use of technology in the classroom. They will share with whoever may care to listen.

What is a TeachMeet – it has a wiki here?

I don’t know. This will be my first. This is what I think it will be…

Teachers get together by agreeing a time and a place. Someone usually takes the lead on this. A sponsor or two are found to provide some beer, the venue and one or two other things (e.g. futurelabs are providing some wifi bandwidth for the online broadcast). The cameras will be operated by volunteers.

The TeachMeet will provide Professional Development for the working teacher. In my opnion it is the best PD you can get. Presentations are limited to 7 minutes including set-up. In that time an issue is raised and discussed or an aspect of pedagogy presented. The atmosphere is informal with a certain respect for decorum and a vibrant buzz around the room.

This is from the wiki; a few rules:

TeachMeets are about sharing practice, so if you’ve something interesting or exciting to share, please add your name to one of these lists – either for 7 minutes’ or 2 minutes’ duration. The rules (such as they are):

• You can’t sell or simply plug anything – this has to be classroom-based practice that’s happening right now, not “this is what someone could do in their classroom using product or tool X“
• No PowerPoint / KeyNote / other presentation software – unless you’re doing 20 slides for 20 seconds each (pecha kucha style - pecha kucha article);
• You can’t sell anything – reeling off a long list of features with no context is counted as selling.
• You will be asked to stop when your time is up – time is short and there will be plenty of people happy to ask you about what you’ve spoken about when you’ve finished!
• Your time includes setup – so if you bring a laptop and need to plug it in to a projector, find the audio I/O connection, etc., that all eats in to the time that you can use to share. A way around this is to make sure what you’re showing is online, then use the machine at the front to access it.
• If you want to use your own machine, it’s worth using the Scrapbook extension for Firefox to save offline copies of pages you want to use – just like in the classroom, it’s always good to have something to fall back on if your connection to the internet just disappears…
• It’s TeachMeet not SalesMeet – if you sell and don’t feature any classroom practice, you’ll be asked to stop. Harsh but fair…

< li>As it’s likely that there will be more people wanting to contribute than there are slots for them, presentations will be selected at random - that’s the way TeachMeets work, so please don’t be offended if your name doesn’t come up. It always turns out like that for a few potential contributors.

I am really excited about attending. I’ll get to meet (and meet again) some people I work with online and value as a great asset to my work.

I will be bringing my laptop to plug a camera into for one of the broadcasts (flashmeet and ustream) and a tripod to sit the camera on. Also, I will be tweeting as the back channel makes a noise and making a few qik interviews to broadcast from the sidelines.

It is going to be an interesting night with a lot to show and a lot to learn. The web is full of fantastic tools for learning; for the classroom there have rarely been more exciting times for the teacher willing to take the plunge. You don’t need to be a geek to do it. You don’t even have to know that much about any of these things.

All that is required is that you want to spice up your classroom and help prepare young people for the digital world which lies ahead of them. Once you start using ed tech you will never look back. Just one project is all it takes. Watch and learn. If you do, you will be very pleased that you did.